A Study of Shinto

The Religion of the Japanese Nation

Genchi Katu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415593496
• eBook ISBN: 9781136903694
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

This volume investigates and present the salient features of Shinto through a long history of development from its remote past up to the present. It is a historical study of Shinto from a scientific point of view, illustrating the higher aspects of the religion, compile on strict lines of religious comparison.

BOOK II GENETICAL OR HISTORICAL

PART I
SHINT

IN THE STAGE OF NATURE RELIGION

SECTION I PRE-POLYDEMONISTIC AND POLYDEMONISTIC STAGES OF SHINT

CHAPTER I
SOME TRACES OF ANIMATISM OR PRE-ANIMISM IN SHINT

We often see a phase of religion among nature peoples which tells us that in that stage of religious development the object of their worship is one that directly appeals to our senses: for instance, they worship the sun, i.e., not the spirit of the sun, but the sun itself, visible to the naked eye; they worship the wind, i.e., the wind palpable to our senses, and not the invisible mysterious power residing in the wind. Thus also the visible Heaven itself, the high awe-inspiring mountain itself, the roaring sea itself, the tremendous cataract itself, and so on, are all worshipped as divine. This is what we call simple or original nature worship or animatism, or pre-polydemonism in general, in contradistinction to animism or polydemonism, because in the stage of animism or polydemonism people believe in spiritual powers, either incorporated or disembodied, i.e., the crude philosophy of animism or polydemonism presupposes the existence of a spirit or invisible divine power inherent in the visible object of Nature; they worship the former by and through the latter, and not the latter itself. In ancient Egypt, for instance, the Sun-Gods Ra and Aten in origin were in the stage of pre-animism or animatism, and by degrees they passed on to the stage of animism; in Babylonia, the Sun-God Shamash has the same history; this is the case with Zeus, the Heavenly God of ancient Greece, and the Greek Hermes, originally an upright stone itself on the boundary, as the very name of the God shows. In Vedic India the Wind-God V

t

represents a wind-god in the stage of animatism, while V

y

, God of the wind, is produced in the animistic stage of Indian religion. The case is the same with the deities of Shint

. We can discover a trace or remnant of simple nature worship once existing in Shint

, the most primitive form of religious belief among the Japanese. In the Hishizume-no-Matsuri-no-Norito or Ritual of the Festival of Appeasing the Fire-God, the physically visible fire and the God residing in the fire are indiscriminately and interchangeably referred to, there having been no distinction at all between the God of Fire and the physical fire itself, visible to our naked eyes. The history of the development of the Vedic Fire-God Agni tells the same thing. In ancient Japan the God of Fire was called Kagutsuchi, the Radiant (Shining) One, or Homusubi, the Fire-Producer, and there was little or no distinction between the God of Fire and the physical fire itself. So we read in the Hishizumeno-Matsuri-no-Norito or Ritual of the Festival of Appeasing the Fire-God:—

“When Izanami’s last son Homusubi, God of Fire, was born, her pudenda were burnt and she passed away And lo! giving birth to Fire, her pudenda were burnt.”

Here we see the words fire and the God of Fire indiscriminately used by the same author, meaning one and the same thing. On this point I agree with Aston’s view.¹ The ancient Japanese seem to have had the same belief as regards the wind, namely, I think they may have made very little distinction between the god in the wind (like the Indian V

y

) and the palpable wind (like the Indian V

t

) itself. On reference to the Japanese historical books, e.g., the Nihongi or Chronicles of Japan and the Kujiki or Chronicles of the Old Matters of Former Ages, we find that the Japanese mind at that time made little distinction or none at all between the God of the Wind and the wind itself. In the Nihongi we have a passage which describes how the corpse of a traitor, Amewakahiko by name, was brought back from the earth up to the Plain of High Heaven, and on that occasion the name of the messenger sent from Heaven for the purpose is differently mentioned, in one account as Hayachi-no-kami or God of the Wind and in another as the physical wind itself. And it seems to me that, to the ancient Japanese, the sun, the moon, seas, rivers, mountains, trees and herbs, and the Great-Eight-Island-Country, i.e., the Land of Japan, itself, are all living beings, offspring of the divine male Izanagi and the divine female Izanami, and so far those natural objects are regarded as in reality supernatural or mysterious superhuman beings, i.e., Kami¹ (Deities).

On this point the present writer completely agrees with the learned Moto-ori that there was in ancient Japan a simple nature worship in the adoration of the sun, the moon, seas, mountains, rivers,….and trees (Vide Moto-ori-Norinaga, Kojikiden or Commentary on the Kojiki, Vol. VI. Collected Works, Vol. I, pp. 151, 357. Ise-Futamiya-Sakitake-no-Ben. Collected Works, Vol. IV, p. 739).

Therefore we read in the Many

sh

or Collection of a Myriad Leaves:—

“The highest peak of Mt. Fuji¹ is a wondrous deity and a guardian of the land of Japan” (Many

sh

, Vol. III).

So we a...

Table of contents

• PREFACE
• Publishers’ Note
• CONTENTS
• ABBREVIATIONS USED
• A STUDY OF SHINTO, THE RELIGION OF THE JAPANESE NATION
• PART I SHINTŌ IN THE STAGE OF NATURE RELIGION
• PART II SHINTŌ IN THE STAGE OF ETHICO-INTELLECTUALISTIC RELIGION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX